ReadyNAS Ultra 2-Bay RAID question

[Mainer82]

I'm looking at buying the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2-Bay NAS unit and 2 WD Red HDDs. I want to run RAID 1 so that the data is mirrored on both drives. Now, I've read some information on RAID but am not an expert- I have a couple of questions:

1) With RAID 1 my understanding is that if one drive fails, the other will have all of the data. Now, can I take the 1 working drive and plug it into a computer and access/copy the data?

 

[ronintexas]

With RAID1, they are mirrored drives, so if 1 fails, the other has the data, but should be accessed from the NAS Unit (it will work with 1 drive failure). If you replace the failed drive, the RAID will rebuild automatically.

If you are concerned with data - I would consider WD Black drives for the setup, as they are the most reliable. That is not to say the red, blue or green drives are junk - I have used them all depending upon the installation requirements (budget, data value, etc).

 

[Mainer82]

Thanks for the reply. So you're saying that I shouldn't attempt to access the data from another computer? The reason I ask is what happens if the RAID controller or the NAS unit fails and I can't replace it?

I'll look into the black drives as well. This is going to be for my house, we have a small photography side business and want to make sure all work and personal data is backed up (I also burn data to Blurays for another long term solution)

 

[lyrius]

No, he means that the both drives should be in the NAS unit. You can't raid drive in PC to drive in the NAS. Making back up doesn't require raid. You can have 1 drive in the NAS and one in the PC.

 

[Mainer82]

I realize that, what I meant was if a drive does fail or the controller fails, I want to be able to access my data and since it's mirrored, wouldn't I be able to obtain the data in that method as a resort?

 

[lyrius]

Yes you can pull out the drive and plug it in the PC. (if the controller fails).

 

[lyrius]

If the drive on the NAS failes your data will be safe on the PC. But you will need to replace the drive and back up again.

 

[Mainer82]

I'm not sure where you're coming from on your last comment. I'm not concerned with the data on my drive on my computers in the event of a NAS failure. I was just asking in a what if scenerio.

Just to clear it up, if a RAID controller fails or a drive fails, etc. I want to know that if I take one of the drives from the NAS in a RAID 1 configuration, can I simply plug that drive into _a_ computer and retrieve the data from that mirrored disk?

 

[ronintexas]

In some cases yes. If the RAID controller formats the drive in a proprietary way (I don't know if the NAS you chose does this), your local PC can't read the drive.

With the NAS Controllers I have used in the past, if a drive failed, I replaced it, and then went into the utilities to rebuild the array. Depending upon the number and size of the files, this can take anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours, but your data is safe.

On my home network, I chose to add two WD Black drives as standard drives, and I use SyncBack nightly to backup the data (not just from my computer, but the other computers on the network also go to this drive).

http://www.filehippo.com/download_syncback/

It is free - and works great - a lot less expensive as compared to NAS....